Effective surveillance and security are needed more now than ever at airports, nuclear power plant and other secure locations. Video surveillance is increasingly being deployed at airports and sensitive sites. To be effective in realistic situations, video-based surveillance requires robust scene understanding. In a typical surveillance and security system, multiple monitors or television screens are used, with each screen providing a view of a scene of one camera. An example of this system is shown in FIG. 1A. Operation of this system usually requires a large space and several guards.
With reliable scene understanding, however, a typical security setup or system such as that shown in FIG. 1A (with a bank of monitors and several guards) can be replaced by a single display and operator as shown in FIG. 1B. The surveillance system illustrated is known as VIDEO FLASHLIGHT™ and it is described in U.S. published patent application 2003/0085992 published on May 8, 2003, which is herein incorporated by reference. In general, automated algorithms analyze incoming video and alert the operator when a perimeter is breached, motion is detected, or other actions are reported. Visual fusion of camera locations, analysis result, and alerts, in a situational awareness system gives an operator a holistic view of the entire site. With such a setup, the operator can quickly assess and respond to potential threats.
This system provides for viewing of systems of security cameras at a site, of which there can be a large number. The video output of the cameras in an immersive system is combined with a rendered computer model of the site. These systems, such as the system shown in U.S. published patent application 2003/0085992, allow the user to move through the virtual model and view the relevant video automatically present in an immersive virtual environment which contains the real-time video feeds from the cameras overlayed on the rendered images from a computer 2D or 3D model of the site. This provides an excellent way of reviewing the video from a number, even a very large number, of video feeds from cameras.
At the same time, however, increasing the number of video cameras producing data is frequently desirable for the purpose of making the surveillance more complete, or for a larger areas, or any other reason. Unfortunately, existing surveillance systems are not designed usually for massive expansion of the amount of data that they process. Therefore it would be desirable have a system that is readily scalable to a greatly increased number of cameras or other sensors, and also extendable to include other types of sensors including radar, fence sensors, and access control systems, and yet maintains an equivalent level of capability of interpreting behavior across these sensors to identify a threat condition.
In addition, it would be desirable to have a system that provides modularity between components in the event components need to be removed, replaced or added to the system.